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Hammerhaid: OK, it's time for #@$& cold weather to end



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By: MIKE WEST, Managing Editor
Posted: Sunday, January 17, 2010 7:02 am
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Dang it, it’s time for this cold weather to get over.

Hammerhaid is ready for spring much faster than usual.

And the reason for his haste is somewhat hard to understand.

“Normally, I like a bit of cold weather. I enjoy bundling up, staying home and watching TV,” H-haid said.

That policy fits into his usual tendency to do nothing ... or a least, as little as possible.

“Tending the fire is my kind of winter fun,” he explained.

And normally, he’s pretty good at it. He’s been pretty good at starting and tending a fire since his days as a Boy Scout. Heck, he’s devoted hours of study and practice since the days his grandpappys both heated their homes with fireplaces and woodstoves.

“You’ve got to have tender, kindling and split wood. If you’ve got that, building a proper fire just isn’t too hard,” he explained.

Hammerhaid prefers old-style wooden kitchen matches for starting and newspaper for catching the kindling on fire. Generally, that works like a charm and he can have a proper fire going quickly.

But nowadays, all he has to do is get a composite log from out in the garage and place it in the fireplace. He lights the two clearly marked points and there it goes. It makes a nice, neat fire that looks fairly nice, but doesn’t put out much heat.

Yup, a fake fire in a fake fireplace.

“W-h-h-h-hhale, it’s a fire in the sense that it will burn you, but it just doesn’t put out much heat mainly because you can only use one firelog at a time,” he explained. “And you aren’t supposed to use real logs either.”

So, it’s supposed to be nice and neat.

And it is. The logs burn down to just a few ashes, so clean up is a breeze. Anybody can do it.

Maybe that last part ... “anybody can do it” ... is what Hammerhaid finds exception to. He always enjoyed being one of the few that could build a fire without much trouble.

But that’s not to say he’s perfect when it comes to fire building.

He recently had a couple of days to build a real fire in a real woodstove at a real state park on a real getaway with wife Betty Lou.

But, as you can imagine, Hammerhaid had a little trouble along the way.

Oh, everything was perfect. The cabin was already nice and warm thanks to a heat pump, but building a fire on such a cold day would be super.

But Hammerhaid, who prides himself on being totally prepared, didn’t bring a match or lighter. He forgot the kindling and the firewood too. He did find a couple of branches outside. Naturally, they were too long and too wet to even think about starting a fire.

It didn’t take Betty Lou long to beg a lighter. Hammerhaid finally managed to walk to and fro and find a few branches for some make-do kindling. While he was out looking, a couple of semi-decent pieces of wood showed up outside their cabin door.

Trying time and time again, Hammerhaid eventually had a half-decent fire going. It burned out sometime in the early morning hours, leaving the cabin cooler than ever.

The next morning it was even colder, but Hammerhaid hiked around and only found a few wet sticks. Embarrassed, he carried them back to the cabin where Betty Lou was busy cooking up a fantastic breakfast. He joined her in the little kitchen and happened to take a peek out the window where he noticed a couple of workers filling the firewood shed with nice, split wood.

He hustled up the hill and grabbed up a couple of arms full of wood. He even found some slightly wet kindling.

Quickly, he put together a decent fire.

Betty Lou looked at him with a grin. “Next time....”

“Next time, I will bring lighter, newspaper, tinder and firewood,” he finished her sentence.

“And you probably won’t need them,” she added with a giggle.

T-t-t-t-that’s r-r-r-r-r-ight.
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Tags: Hammerhaid, Mike West, Voices
Member Opinions:
By: acdsrool on 1/17/10
Young love...ain't it grand!?!


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